Aku
' Aku', was an evil, shapeshifting demon that had taken over the world and ruled it for countless eons. Until a samurai that he fought and plunged into the future where his dominion over the Earth is powerful, fought many battles through the years through magic, robots and bounty hunters until finally his reign of terror was ended by Jack and his daughter by returning to the past and undid the evil he unleashed. But, Aku was not willing to submit defeat and traveled into the past with his own time portal and changed reality by spawning the creatures of darkness in his place before he could be erased from history. Giving his 'children' a name that would bring fear and terror to all that opposed him, the Grimm as his final act of vengeance. Appearance Biography Original Timeline Long ago in the vastness of space, a great, formless, mindless entity of evil arose. Before it could do harm to the universe, it was set upon by the three prime deities of the Aesir, Egyptian, and Hindu mythologies: Odin the All-father , Ra the Sun God , and Vishnu , the Supreme God and Soul. The three deities fought a fierce battle against the black mass, burning the entity almost completely out of existence with their divine power. However, during the battle, one small fragment of the entity was incidentally cut from the whole by Odin and did not burn away. Unnoticed by the three deities, this seemingly small fragment floated away from the site of the battle and drifted through space for an untold amount of time, until it eventually, and violently, crashed on Earth during the Cretaceous period of the Mesozoic era. It is implied that the fragment of the black mass was the very object that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs although the crash occurred in prehistoric Japan as opposed to the Yucatan peninsula by a massive asteroid. Over eons, the fragment evolved into an ever-growing ominous forest of black tree-like spikes, surrounding a tar-like pit at its center that devoured any living thing that dared enter. Eventually, the forest grew so large that the Emperor (Jack's father) decided to kill the evil at its source. Armed with a poison elixir given to him by a Buddhist monk, the Emperor, and his cavalry rode into the heart of the forest. But as they rode, the forest began to gradually kill off his men, leaving the Emperor himself as the only survivor. Once he arrived at the black lake in the forest's center, the Samurai Lord doused an arrow into the elixir he was given and fired it into the black lake, believing that it would destroy the evil forest. Unexpectedly, the poison arrow's magic had the unforeseen effect of galvanizing the evil mass into a humanoid form, giving it intelligence, sentience, and shape-shifting abilities. The evil proclaimed its name to be Aku and thanked the Emperor for inadvertently helping him. The Emperor attacked Aku, but with nothing more than his mundane, mortal weapons, he could inflict no harm upon the being. Aku easily defeated the Emperor and strapped him to the side of a tree so that he could watch as Aku began to destroy his home and slaughter his people. However, the Deities, sensing the good in the Samurai Lord, summoned him to them with the aid of Odin's horse Sleipnir. Taking the good inside him, they used avatar bodies to create an enchanted sword that was capable of harming Aku. Armed with the sword and a magical suit of armor, the Emperor plunged into battle against Aku. In the end, the Emperor was victorious and proceeded to seal him in the devastated wasteland in the form of a jagged black tree. As he was sealed away, Aku vowed he would one day return. During the battle, the Emperor's wife gave birth to a son. Determined to learn from the catastrophe, and aware that Aku would indeed one day return, the Emperor and his family hatched a plan and orchestrated the events that would set Jack on his eventual years of training. Eight years later, during a solar eclipse, the seal the emperor placed on Aku broke and was released. His first target was the village of the emperor who sealed him eight years prior. In a castle, Jack was a young child and his father was telling him how he defeated Aku. After the story was done, Jack was left alone, playing with a toy sword. Suddenly, the castle was covered in Aku's shadow. Aku unleashed a vicious attack on the city. Jack's father attempted to get the sword, but Aku captured him before he could reach it. The Lord told his wife it was time to enact the plan they had prepared. Following the plan, Jack's mother escaped with him and the sword. Jack then started on his journey to prepare both physically and mentally for his confrontation against Aku. Many years later, a formidably trained Jack returned to find his land devastated and his people, including his father, enslaved and horribly suffering, forced to harvest the rich resources of their land for Aku to increase his powers and spread his evil across the entire planet. Filled with righteous wrath, Jack quickly slew Aku's minions and went to Aku's palace to slay him. After a vicious battle, Jack eventually overpowered Aku. However, before Jack could finish him off, a desperate Aku tore open a portal in time and flung him into the distant future, a future in which Aku was certain that his evil would be spread out all over the world. Changing History After destroying the last known time portal and eliminating Jack's hope to return to his own time, Aku decided to stop confronting Jack personally. Instead, he continued to send bounty hunters after Jack while simply waiting for him to die of old age, assuming that his victory would in this way be assured. However, it later became apparent that Jack's initial time-traveling had halted his natural ageing process, eternally leaving him at the same biological age as when Aku first sent him to the future. This discovery scuttled Aku's plan and left him at somewhat of a loss as to what to do about his seemingly ageless foe. Ironically, despite Aku's fear of confronting Jack, the samurai did not manage to recover his lost sword, rendering him helpless against any potential attack by Aku. But, because Aku had given up attempting to defeat Jack personally, he did not discover that Jack had lost his sword, and none of the bounty hunters who encountered Jack ever managed to report back to Aku alive. Somewhat oddly, though Aku never discovered that Jack had lost his sword, he did somehow learn that Jack had grown a beard. During this time, he also came to realize, much to his annoyance, that stories of Jack's experiences had begun to inspire relatively wide-spread rebellion against him. Frightened of encountering Jack, Aku could do little personally to stop the uprisings and fell into something of a depression. Trapped in an eternal stalemate with Jack, Aku began to develop a degree of apathy even towards his tyrannical rule. He even began seeing a therapist in a sense by splitting himself into two entities and talking to himself. At one point long after his last encounter with Jack, his fortress was attacked by a large military force, which included an army of Scotswomen led by their father, The Scotsman. Hoping to shake himself out of his funk, Aku nonchalantly destroyed most of the army himself. After simply flattening most of his enemies by rolling over them in the form of a giant black sphere, he prepared to destroy the group of Scotswomen, who had been instructed to flee by their father. However before he could do so, he was confronted by the Scotsman. Hoping to distract Aku, the Scotsman mocked him incessantly for being scared of Jack and consequently losing much of his fearsome reputation. After enduring the Scotsman's taunts for a short time, Aku incinerated his foe with his eye-beams. However, he quickly became unhappy again due to the Scotsman mentioning Jack and returned to his fortress, forgetting to kill the Scotsman's daughters and missing the Scotsman's return as a ghost. He also later received a phone call from the severed head of the assassin Scaramouche, who had learned that Jack's sword was missing and hoped to inform Aku. However, random circumstance and Scaramouche's undiplomatic nature conspired to prevent Aku from learning of Jack's plight. Eventually, however, Scaramouche managed to reach Aku and report the status of Jack's sword, unknown to him that the information arrived too late. After Scaramouche tells him, Aku angrily pushes down hard on Scaramouche's head, asking if he's sure. Excited with the news, an immediately reinvigorated Aku confronted Jack for the first time in decades, only to discover the samurai had already recovered his weapon. After destroying Scaramouche in anger, Aku casually attempted to leave the area until he noticed a familiar smell coming from Jack's companion, Ashi. Suddenly remembering the time he visited the Cult of Aku and offered them some of his essence, Aku quickly deduced that Ashi was his biological daughter and used the essence inside her to control her into fighting Jack, casually remarking to a giant robot corpse how his (last remaining) daughter had fallen and run off with his mortal enemy. Already bored with Jack's attempt to free her, Aku simply tossed the robot onto them before corrupting Ashi with a new bodysuit in his likeness. When Jack couldn't bring himself to kill Ashi and surrendered, Aku ordered his daughter to stand down, claiming Jack's sword for himself and relishing in his victory. After Aku captured Jack and stole his sword, he announced his victory to everyone in the world, if not the universe, once again relishing in his victory. Aku prepared to kill Jack in front of the whole universe, but was confused as to how he should kill his arch-enemy. After a period of indecision, Aku decides it's best for Ashi to kill Jack. As Ashi prepares to kill Jack, all of Jack's allies soon arrive and fight Aku and his forces in a grand-scale battle while Jack deals with the corrupted Ashi. Aku finds amusement in the armies attempts to save Jack, as while they may be able to fight off Aku's forces, Aku himself is nearly untouchable. Eventually, Ashi frees herself of Aku's corruption but retains his powers, realising this she quickly gets Jack's katana back, and before Aku can stop them she warps Jack and herself back to the past, the last time that the future Aku is seen he utters his last words of "Oh no...." with an extremely worried look on his face, knowing that his end will soon come. Realizing his death was imminent Aku, in an act of pure desperation, opened a time portal and traveled through it himself. Sensing his younger self's death at the hands of Jack Aku traveled back eons before his awakening by the Emperor, coming upon the crater he would be born from one day and used his powers to alter its nature, using what would have one day become him to create a new force of destruction to destroy the world as his final act of vengeance against Jack and everyone who defied him. Just he was being erased from the timeline Aku gave his creations their name: the Creatures of Grimm. Legacy Tragically, since Ashi was Aku's daughter, she would pass away before she and Jack were wedded. The same presumably happened to every single being in the future since Aku was the catalyst for their existence in some ways. Despite that, Aku's destruction means all the evil he has inflicted was undone, thus sparing those who live in misery under his tyranny from such fate. Ironically, it is shown that Aku still, albeit indirectly, was capable of hurting Jack emotionally when his past destruction affected Ashi's existence since she was his daughter. In the new timeline created by the future Aku's tampering he is all but forgotten, remembered by only a handful who know of the role he played in creating the Grimm. Personality Aku was evil incarnate; he embodied the very essence of an evil overlord. Cruel and domineering to all he meets, it's obey or be obliterated with Aku. Arrogant, temperamental, callous, and sadistic by default, he has ruled the planet for thousands of years and does not take kindly to disobedience. Aku is responsible for countless genocides, with cities, towns, villages, and small settlements being completely destroyed, alongside all their inhabitants, while nature itself is left to rot or decimated to make room for Aku's strongholds. It is likely that religions are also affected, given Aku's loathing towards all that is good and sacred. Furthermore, lack to none of the divine intervention from the gods has allowed him to conquer Earth and rule its inhabitants with iron fists. While Aku has recreated numerous lands into his own image, he is often just as satisfied with leaving entire areas barren wastelands, seeing the carnage as reminders of his power to the general populace. Atrocities are a daily occurrence since Aku's rule, as he welcomes wanted criminals from across the galaxy and provides them with areas that are still fully occupied, entrusting the new arrivals to wipe the populaces from the earth. When faced with opposition, Aku finds enjoyment in slaughtering thousands of rebel armies with ease, and will often make one's circumstances even worse than death if they still long to fight him. Such was the case of the Lava Monster who fought against Aku, even as the villain decimated all his warriors. As punishment, Aku encased the man in a crystal and forced him to watch as he slaughtered everyone he loved and destroyed his kingdom, finally placing him within the depths of a mountain, refusing to grant him a warrior's death. A similar action was performed shortly after Aku's true birth, forcing Jack's father, the Emperor, to watch him begin his reign of terror on his homeland. To increase his already formidable power, Aku will also plunder the world, and countless other planets of their riches and resources, and enslave surrounding species to do the heavy lifting. Those that refuse are often tortured and executed, as with the case of Jack's people and the canine archaeologists. Numerous scientists are recruited, so that Aku may leverage their intelligence to create an unstoppable army of robots to take over various lands considerably quicker and eliminate more carefully hidden pockets of resistance. His powers are even able to conjure up demons and monstrosities, who are unleashed upon the land to create further sorrow and misery. He is outright, merciless and inhumane, to say the least, but has enough of an understanding of humanity to manipulate the feelings of others, often blackmailing others to perform his will and then betray his promises to them once they fulfilled their services. Aku is as intelligent as he is powerful, and his cunning knows little end, from taking the form of a woman to trick Jack or manipulating various races into serving him. He is also dishonest and has no shame or remorse, and he routinely goes back on his word either to serve himself or simply for amusement. Aku takes pleasure in slave labor, having enslaved countless races across the universe. These slaves are often forced to build monuments in Aku's likeness and mine precious resources. When they fail to do so, the slaves are punished terribly and sometimes executed, such in the case of the talking canines. The slaves of Aku's empire often die due to exhaustion and lack of food, only to be replaced with more slaves. Aku particularly enjoyed doing this to great and powerful people such as The Emperor, seeing it as the ultimate insult to have them live the lives of revered and respectable figures, only to spend the rest of their lives as helpless slaves later. Despite this, he possesses a dry sense of humor and often jokes when in a good mood, mocking Jack whenever he can and however he can. For instance, in one episode Aku holds a time portal just out of Jack's reach as Jack jumps for it. He is also rather "genre savvy", and will occasionally lean on the fourth wall or lampshade either his own villainous tendencies or various cliche situations. He is also a frequent source of comic relief in the show, due, in prime, to his reactions to the things around him. While Aku seems to have a soft spot for children at times, this seems to be most indicative of his views of seeing immense value in not simply eradicating them, but rather convincing them via various means to view him as the "hero" of the planet and not Samurai Jack, making them useful servants in the future to shape successive generations. This can be seen in Aku's Fairy Tales where he attempted to make children admire him by telling them tales that depict himself as a hero and Jack as a villain. Unfortunately for him, the children weren't impressed hearing his increasingly ludicrous tales, causing him to vanish in rage after roaring "the end". In Jack and the Rave, he composed an evil techno music that hypnotizes children, again showcasing his lust to indoctrinate young kids into his evil ways, making them dance for him and commit crimes. In episode C, he seemingly welcomes Ashi as his own flesh and blood, and even delighted by the fact that he has daughters. He fondly called Ashi "sweetheart" and himself as "daddy", but this choice of words could have been chosen to further upset Ashi and Jack. However, he had no qualms about manipulating his newly revealed daughter into fighting Jack while lamenting that his child fell for his sworn enemy. Despite this, Aku's many genocides of countless nations have included children as well and the villain previously targeted a young Samurai Jack shortly after the subjugation of his homeland, knowing the threat the son of his former nemesis, the Emperor, would pose to him if left unchecked. After 50 years of battling Jack, Aku's personality seems to be largely unchanged and appear to be more mellow, though he appears to have sunk into something of a depression due to Jack's agelessness, causing Aku to stop caring about being the ruler of the world, having a more noticeably annoyed and fed up expression on his face, with his attitude reflecting this, where once before he would have killed whoever displeased him, in this state of annoyance he instead got annoyed that the muck people had dirtied the floor of his lair, telling them he 'just had it vacuumed!' and angrily told them to leave, this also extends to the robots that are sent to kill Jack, as he has stopped caring about new tech his scientists have created to battle Jack, once telling them 'And I care because?'. While he claimed at one point not to care about Jack's fate, he was actually deeply disturbed by this discovery, as long experience with Jack had demonstrated that his foe was unlikely to fall into the hands of any of Aku's minions, leaving the two of them in a potentially eternal stalemate. The idea that he and Jack would have to spend eternity fighting had gotten to him so badly he actually split himself in two and had the other half become his therapist to do check ups on his mental health. This depression appears to have caused a degree of apathy in Aku, or at least unhappy resignation, as Aku apparently knows that the population of Earth is beginning to rebel against his rule, but is either unable or unwilling to do much about it personally due to having lost track of Jack. His depression also makes him avoid contact with others beings from outside his palace in which he makes the giant voice recorder in his likeliness that record his message said that he doesn't want to meet anyone and ask them to go away. At the same time, he also cares less about tributes. Despite this, Aku's sadistic tendencies appear to be largely intact, as he appeared to be quite pleased with himself after incinerating the Scotsman and destroying most of the army that attacked his fortress. However, even this tendency appears to have been reduced to a considerable degree, as Aku appeared to be more nonchalant than pleased during his destruction of the rebel army. After being confronted by the Scotsman, he either completely forgot to kill the Scotsman's daughters, or simply didn't bother out of disinterest. Additionally, he was shown at one point becoming upset with a group of mud creatures who, in presenting him with tribute, dirtied a recently vacuumed floor. But instead of having the creatures killed or imprisoned as he seemed to do to others in the past on a whim, he merely shouted at them to leave. After hearing Jack loses his sword, he nearly reverts back to his own self and happy to the point of dancing around with Scaramouche. However, after discovering Jack has regained the sword, he angrily blasts Scaramouche to oblivion. During this time, he is shown to be cautious enough not to engage Jack in battle head-on instead he relies on controlling Ashi to deal with Jack in order to toy with him as well as cunningly knowing the fact that Jack will try his best to avoid hurting Ashi. At the same time, he also loses interest in fighting Jack since he tries to leave after seeing Jack with the sword again knowing full well the result of the fight. Although he is an absolute ruler of the world, he is not above paying bills to use services, like when he pays the phone bill to allow Scaramouche to talk to him or ordering bounty hunters to kill Jack. It is also shown he courteous enough to hold the phone to wait for service respond. Shockingly, in episode C, he was even polite ''enough to state his absence, not to mention an apology for any inconvenience of not be able to meet him in person, though he did end the recording by screaming at the listener to leave. Despite being the incarnation of pure evil, he apparently never committed any form of sexual assault and even understand them, as he himself expressed surprise at Ashi's birth, showing his lack of understanding at a human's reproductive system. Powers and Abilities Aku was well known for being one of the most ''powerful characters in the series. He had a large range of powers and capabilities that made him almost unstoppable. Aku was a demonic entity which Jack described as the personification of primordial evil, was one of the most powerful beings in the series, and only a few people were capable of fighting him. *'Near-Immortality': As a supernatural being, Aku was ageless and nearly immortal. He required no sustenance and was not harmed by mortal means. Only the power of righteous spirits or divine weapons like Jack's Sword, or divine entities, were capable of doing severe harm to him *'Shape-shifting': Aku could change into virtually any form that he desired, from a giant dragon to a small insect, or even a beautiful woman. Aku was able to seamlessly change his size, liquefy himself, or stretch and expand his body. He could even replicate into clones of himself to be in numerous places at once and his mind inhabited numerous bodies. At one point, Aku even manifested a second version of himself who acted as a psychologist. In a way, Aku performed talk-therapy on himself. He typically changed into animal forms during battle, such as a scorpion or an octopus and adapted to the situation. On one occasion, Aku also transformed into a huge, amorphous mass of darkness that greatly resembled the evil entity that he had previously once been/was spawned from and altered parts of himself at will. *'Supernatural Physical Abilities': Aku could alter his physical capabilities to virtually any level that he needed or wanted due to his magical shape-shifting abilities. Aku manifested superhuman strength, speed, endurance, and senses. No parameters or upper limits were established that regarded those capabilities. *'Regeneration': While Aku was completely resistant to most forms of attack, he was not invulnerable; items such as Jack's Sword or magic such as divine energy could damage the substance from which he was made of. However, Aku was able to regenerate to a large degree, even against attacks such as those. These sort of assaults tended to create large, burning holes or gashes in Aku wherever he was struck, which he could close back up with effort. However, his ability to regenerate in those situations was limited. In many of Aku's confrontations with Jack, the damage that was caused by the sword whittled away at his overall mass and his ability to regenerate in the short term, until it tended to leave him as a very small animal of some sort, such as a frog or a mouse, at which point further attacks would have presumably either sealed him away as Jack's father did, or killed him as Jack intended to. Given time however, Aku always restored himself without being any worse for wear. Aku was also observed to succumb to physical pain that involved blunt trauma of equal mass in relevance to the size of his form at any given time, although he was shown to quickly recover from such injuries. *'Dark Magic:' Aku was an all-powerful wizard who had vast supernatural powers at his command: **Aku's Eye Beams.Eye Beams: One of Aku's most commonly utilized attacks, that ability tended to manifest as beams of white or red light that typically incinerated the objects that it made contact with. It could be used either as continuous beams of light, or as staccato bolts of energy. Aku had used that ability in numerous battles with Jack, and also used it to destroy the majority of Jack's past kingdom. Aku could also harmlessly teleport beings to places of his choosing through that power. The beams could also slice through objects like a plasma torch, or caused them to explode. ***Aku also used a variation of that ability to restore or recreate whatever he chose: he restored Scaramouche's body with them. **'Remote Viewing': Using mystical forces in his lair, Aku could create images on the walls in order to view whatever he wished. Aku tended to use that ability to simply watch Jack travel while he stewed in his unhappiness at being unable to kill Jack. **'Teleportation': Aku used that often for quick appearances or escapes, and to appear before those that he had business with, such as the Imakandi . **'Elemental Control': Aku could magically project and control the elements of the physical world. Those abilities included breathing and projecting streams of fire from his body, manipulating the earth itself, conjuring thunderstorms at will, or emitting waves of sonic force. By combining fire breath with his eye beams, Aku could also project beams of electricity. **'Telekinesis': Aku was shown the ability to manipulate objects through focus alone, even from far away distances. While he used that ability, Aku's eyes tended to flash white. **'Necromancy': Aku was shown to be capable of animating countless dead bodies and bending them to his commanding will. **'Precognitive Dreams': On one occasion, Aku was shown to be capable of receiving premonitions of his own future through his dreams, which he could then act upon to try and prevent or change them. **'Possession & Infection': Aku could use small portions of himself to infect others with his evil. The only time that this was seen was when he incidentally spat up a tiny portion of himself at Jack, which, over the course of a day or so, possessed Jack and gave him the appearance and personality of Aku. On a related note, Aku could also use portions of himself to give power to machinery, as he demonstrated by doing so with the Ultra-Robots. That ability could also work on Aku's biological offspring, since they already had his essence and were a part of him. **'Interstellar Travel': Aku was capable of interstellar travel, well beyond the speed of light. **'Time Travel': That was the very ability that Aku had used that sent Jack into the future at the beginning of the series, though he only used that once and it was a one way portal forward in time. However, due to its side-effect, Jack did not age even after 50 years in the future. **'Object Materialization': The ability to create matter and materials out of nothing: Aku once used that ability to conjure treasures in the presence of the Imakandi. Aku also used his eye beams and created a new body for Scaramouche. **'Corruption': One of Aku's most powerful abilities. Using dark magic, Aku could mutate normally harmless beings into monstrous versions of themselves. During his last known encounter with Jack, Aku used that ability and transformed three small rams into monsters in order to fight Jack. It was also shown that if the corrupted creature died, the spell was broken and the creature transformed back to its original form. Aku also used that power to curse the Well of King Ozric and then later corrupted Jack through his supposed illness. Aku was also able to infuse that power into techno music to corrupt teenagers. This power extended to the fact that Aku could create life in a way, as shown when he gave the High Priestess a sample of his essence that was originally intended in the use of worship to persumably conceive the Daughters of Aku, as well as enabled him to control or corrupt any and all of his offspring into his likeness, who were complete with supernatural powers. *'Combat Skills': Despite never having been shown to have trained at all in any form of Martial Arts, Aku was a very skilled practitioner in hand-to-hand combat. Though not a match for Jack, Aku was at least capable of defending himself reasonably well against Jack during their duel, while he limited himself to human physicality. Aku was also shown to be a fairly skilled swordsman: Aku stole Jack's Sword and was able to force Jack (who was armed with a sword and a shield) into a defensive posture during a bout of swordplay. However, it should be noted that on that occasion, Aku was not limited in the scope of the powers that he could employ. Relationships Qoutes *''"Yes…Grimm, a suitable name for the harbingers of this world's destruction! My essence will be carried in all of my Grimm children, spreading across this world! I…WILL…NEVER…END!"'' *''"SAMURAI JACK! YOU CANNOT EVER DESTROY ME! AS YOU CELEBRATE YOUR VICTORY I HOPE AS YOU WATCH MY TRAITOR OF A DAUGHTER FADE BEFORE YOUR EYES IT WILL STAB YOU IN THE HEART TO KNOW I STILL WIN! FOR HATE'S SAKE I SPIT MY LAST BREATH AT THEE! '' Background Information Aku is the main antagonist from the animated series Samurai Jack Trivia Category:Demons Category:Characters Category:Villains